Public Participation

After a number of weekends the Editor has finished reading a very informative book written by a score of talented scholars and edited by Professor Parrillo of Yale University on the works of an administrative law legend, Professor Mashaw.

Selfishly we often read articles from the perspective of issues we are working on, in this instance centralized regulatory review and the Data Quality Act.

The text states:

For a generation, Jerry L. Mashaw, the most boundary-pushing scholar in the field of administrative law, has argued that bureaucrats can and should self-generate the norms that give us a government of laws.

Last evening I had the good fortune of being invited and attending the annual reception of Public Citizen. During the course of the event a number of discussions centered around the Old Washington, when we accorded those who differed with our position the respect they deserved. Notwithstanding our occasional differences on federal regulatory policy I recounted the enormous impact the organization had on public policy.

Most noteworthy was the Public Citizen’s work to convince the Supreme Court to overturn the one-house veto of regulations in the Chadha Decision. The decision was of far reaching impact because during my tenure as a career federal employee the one-house veto of regulations vested  Congressional committee staff with an enormous power to influence the content of federal rulemakings. The intervention of Public Citizen brought this toxic practice to an end.

Editor’s Note: Case Closed, really?  It should be noted  that notwithstanding the precedent-setting accomplishments of the plaintiffs that five years hence the report will continue  to  be available in its uncorrected form on the DoJ website unless the plaintiffs file for judicial relief. [ CRE has not reviewed the report in detail and consequently is addressing this matter solely as a procedural–not a substantive– issue under the Data (Information) Quality Act; CRE’s interest is in demonstrating that a court can review the denial of a DQA petition ].